The word charity comes from the word caritas, meaning “love” or “mercy.” Mercy, implying that to do something charitable is something extra, more than what is expected of us. Mercy implies that while someone may not have completely deserved something, we might take pity on them and give it to them anyway, we can’t all be perfect, and can’t always do the right thing all of the time, so every once in awhile we give each other a break. In kabbalah, mercy stands on the left hand of God, something that is doled out here and there when we make mistakes. But on the opposite hand, the right hand, stands the value of justice. Tzedek. Tzadakah. As Jews we have a different approach to the giving of money to people who are in need, this is not an extra act, not something that breaks the natural flow of worldly reward and punishment with mercy, for us, tzedakah is the natural worldly flow.
Growing up, my family would gather on Friday night for a beautiful Shabbat dinner, set out and around a long table covered by a white tablecloth in our dining room. After we had eaten, cleaned up, and the guests had gone home, my parents would read Jewish stories to us on the the old funky couch my mom reupholstered long before I was born. Falling asleep we would beg for more stories until we didn’t notice their completion anymore, because we were busy dreaming our own. Many of these stories we would ask for again and again, but none more than the stories from a little town of fools called Chelm. On their adventures Chelmites solved and endured calamity after calamity, the wise people gathering to apply solutions that often only exacerbated their problems. If I say nothing else let it be this: read these stories. Read them to your family, read them to yourself. They are a treasure among the books in our tradition. On one such day in the town of Chelm, Hirschel is walking down the main thoroughfare and notices a beggar. He himself is not so well off, but he has a home, a good horse, and what to eat. How could he pass by someone so in need and not help, when he himself has so very much. And so, as only a Chelmite could, he gives her his house, his horse and all the food he has to eat. Only now Hirschel has nothing for himself and so he takes to the street to ask for help. Well it just so happens that Raisel, who yesterday had nothing and now thanks to Hirschel has a house, a good horse, and what to eat was passing by Hirschel. She didn’t recognize him in his torn clothes, but thought, I myself don’t have so much, but I have a house, a horse, and what to eat, and so she gives everything to Hirschel, and she takes to the streets asking for help. And so it continues, to this day, where still Hirschel and Raisel don’t recognize one another, but they certainly recognize an empty hand, and a mouth to feed.
There is so much to learn from this story. So much that it says so elegantly, so beautifully, with humor and grace. Later scholars have looked at these stories from Chelm, analyzing them for their origins and growth through history. Literary scholars have often said that these stories were indicative of Talmudic logic, taking teachings from the rabbis in the Talmud and placing them in contexts that furthered the humor and celebration of life that the original authors of the Talmud reveled in. Perhaps more than any other value, this story teaches something beautiful about tzedakah. For Jews, when we give to another person who is in need, we are not making a decision and taking an extra step, we are returning to a person what is already theirs.
We do not have in our understanding the idea that those who are poor have done something wrong to be impoverished. We do not approach someone who is in poverty with a sense of pity, or mercy, but with a sense of justice, that the course of history is bent, that the world does not favor and punish based on any rationale, but rather that it is corrected with rationale, with tzedek, with justice. And so we do not give charity, we give tzedakah.